


Phantasmagoria

by haveyouseenmymind



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mention of Child Abuse, Star Trek: Into Darkness, kind of mind fuckery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-14
Updated: 2018-06-14
Packaged: 2019-05-23 09:00:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14931248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/haveyouseenmymind/pseuds/haveyouseenmymind
Summary: Phantasmagoria: random series of associative images, illusions or phantasms as in dreams or under feaver.





	Phantasmagoria

He remembers this place. Not only the house, but also the farm surrounding it. The dry dirt dusts up into the air as he takes step for step, coming closer to the old farmhouse. He has been here before, but when? **  
**

Curiously, he steps up the porch and knows before he actually hears it, that the second tread will make a horrible squeaking sound, alarming whoever lives here of his presence. He flinches at the noise, hates it, always has.

He remembers being forced to avoid it while sneaking back into the house, but also getting caught once due to his carelessness. And the thorough beating he got for it. After that he had learned his lesson, so he had found a way back into his room over the roof and his window. Frank had never caught him again after that.

His eyes grow wide. Of course, Frank.

He’s in Iowa, back home. Back at the farm he had hated so much when he was a child, where his mother had left him and his brother back in the care of the pathetic excuse of a stepfather.

Why is he here? Isn’t he supposed to be somewhere else?

**_“Jim.”_ **

Someone is calling him. A man. Does his voice come from the inside? Why does it sound so familiar?

He’s in front of the door, and he’s not sure if he wants to go inside. What will expect him in there? Empty rooms? Or Frank on the couch, surrounded by dozens of beer bottles, and his glassy eyes, hazy from too much alcohol, glued to the vidscreen? Giving a shit about Jim coming back?

No… Frank doesn’t live here anymore. He’s long gone.

Jim’s thoughts are growing messy, his head is spinning while trying to gather the right memories. He has to close his eyes, take steadying breaths to calm himself down, as he can’t afford to panic now.

When he feels calm enough to face whatever awaits him, he opens his eyes, and reels back immediately.

He’s inside the house, but how? Just a second ago he was still standing outside, and he can’t remember moving an inch away from his position in front of the door.

What the hell is going on?

There are noises coming from the kitchen, but it’s not Frank, can’t be Frank, so who is in there? He slowly starts moving, wariness mingling into his confusion, and when he steps into the room, sees what’s in front of him, he stops right where he stands, too shocked to say anything.

His mother is standing at the stove, with a silly pink apron, the ribbon, sitting on her lower back, neatly bound. She’s humming as she stirs the content of one of the pots on the stove plates with a wooden spoon, not looking up, but instead completely entranced with whatever she’s cooking.

It’s wrong. So, so wrong and Jim has no idea what’s going on, cause this can’t be his mother.

Winona Kirk is a messy cook. Jim knows this from his own experiences, the last one made at an awkward attempt to bring the family back together, to amend her wrongdoings from his and Sam’s childhood.

When he had been back after… after what? Images flash through his head, a planet destroyed, a ship exploding, and Jim tries to remember, but the memories flee away from his mind’s grasp.

But he remembers setting foot back on earth, his mother waiting for him with Sam by her side. Days later they were back at this house, the kitchen a mess and no aprons with pretty ribbons.

She suddenly looks up, turns around and spots him standing in the door, and he stares at her. She looks the same as that day, same clothes plus the apron, wrinkles around her eyes, made of worries and old, ineradicable grieve that’ll never grow out of her heart, no matter how much she tries, how much she runs away from it.

But she smiles at him, looks even happy?

Suddenly Sam rushes into the room, straight towards the coffee pot, but his mother is still looking at him contently, until her eyes stray away from him, move towards the kitchen table.

“Look George, Jim is back home.”

Every muscle in his body tenses as he goes immediately rigid, cause she is not talking to Sam. He turns towards the table, afraid of what he’ll see.

Jim must have gone crazy, cause indeed, there’s he sitting, not a day older than 29, looking the way Jim knows him from uncountable holo pictures his mother had tried to hide from him at the attic.

George Kirk, his father, looks up from his own mug of coffee, staring at Jim and scrutinizing him with a calculating gaze.

“You’re not supposed to be here, son.”

It’s too much. Jim can’t handle this, can’t cope with what’s happening here, as he must have lost his mind. He whips around and starts running, runs to get away, to get out of here, and suddenly he hears the voice again.

_**“Jim, you need to come back.”** _

It’s leading him towards the outside, so he runs for the front door, stumbles through it, only to be blended by bright light.

He closes his eyes for a second, and when he opens them again, he’s not on the farm any longer.

Instead he finds himself in a desert of ice, no living soul to see far and wide. He looks down on himself, and again he’s taken aback. His clothes have changed somehow, he is clad in a dark grey parka, it’s hood drawn tight around his head, protecting him from sharp storming wind whipping snow into his eyes, making it hard for him to even see his own hands.

It should be cold, freezing as hell, but he can’t feel it. He doesn’t know why, but nothing so far has made any sense.

Looking around, he can’t see anything but ice and snow. What is he supposed to do now? As he has no better idea, he starts walking into whatever direction. He can’t orientate himself, there’s nothing to hold on in this barren landscape, but he has to do something and waiting for anything to happen won’t do him any good. He has to get away.

Jim doesn’t know how long he’s walking, if it’s minutes or hours, as his sense of time is completely lost to him.

But suddenly, he sees a dark figure in the distance so he’s mending his pace in hope that this person knows how to get away from this horrible wasteland.

He’s getting closer, and faster than anticipated he stops behind the figure, who turns out to be a man, standing at the edge of an icy cliff.

The man turns around to him, and Jim recognizes the old wrinkled face.

“James T. Kirk.”

Spock. The old Spock, stranded in this universe, cut off from his own timeline and suddenly Jim remembers the planet.

Vulcan. Destroyed, from the inside out. Billions of lives lost.

Remembers the ship, the Narada, steered into it’s doom by a madman craving for blood and revenge.

He’s on Delta Vega, this is where he met the old Spock, though not like this. Jim knows that he should have stumbled into a cave, where Spock scared a monster with only a torch away.

But still, he had turned around the same way, greeting him with the exact same words.

Why was it different this time?

There is no time to wonder though, with Earth in danger, and every other planet belonging to the Federation.

“Spock, we need to go! Nero, he’s after the Earth. We need to find Scotty!”

But the old Vulcan doesn’t move from his spot, just turns back towards the edge of the cliff and looks up in the sky.

“It’s too late, old friend.”  

Jim feels a pang of sympathy, of course he does, not only did the man lose every way back home but he also had to witness his planet dying. His gaze follows Spock’s up, to where a red planet should be seen, but is gone now.

And he’s right, Vulcan is not there, but in its place is another planet.

Jim feels nauseous, cause this is his planet, it’s Earth, but that doesn’t make any sense, as it should be light years away from here.

He keeps staring, and sees how his home slowly crumbles down, collapses with the outside getting sucked inside, and then - it’s gone.

Rage fills him, this is not how it had happened, they were supposed to save his planet, the whole Federation and not stand by, watching the catastrophe without being able to do anything.

Tears fill his eyes, so many more lives lost, and it’s his fault, Spock’s fault, Nero’s fault.

He roars at the Vulcan, gaze still caught on the now empty sky.

“Spock!!!”

And he lets the anger consume him, overtake his mind as he launches himself at the old man, ready to throw punch after punch.

But Spock suddenly vanishes, there’s nothing left but silent air, so he stumbles over the edge, rolls down as he falls and falls and falls.

This has to be it, he thinks. He wants it to end, wants it to stop hurting, wants to believe that his planet, his home, his friends are not gone, lost to the endlessness of the universe.

He can’t stop it, maybe he can escape this somehow, and in a last attempt of desperation, he closes his eyes and hopes.

It seems to work, as he feels that his falling has ended, but he also feels dizzy, all his senses overworking until everything stops at once. **  
**

He lets out a harsh breath, tries to calm down once more, and slowly opens his eyes again. Looking up, he sees the white ceiling of a room and realizes that he’s lying on his back on a couch. Ice and snow are gone, but he has stopped wondering and second guessing his mind. Maybe he should just accept that he’s gone crazy.

“Are you finally awake, sleeping beauty?”

His head whips around, to see who’s there. **  
**

Christopher Pike is sitting at his desk, scribbling down on his PADD, and not looking up. There’s this smirk on his lips, the one that always sneaks up on his features when he’s teasing Jim, or when he thinks that he has outwitted him.

He sits up and realizes that he’s wearing his cadet reds, that he’s in Pike’s office at Starfleet’s campus.

By now he has given up to find any logic behind all of this, he’s tired and just wants it to end.

“You know Jim, I really approve of your hard work, but you also need to look after yourself. There are these things called sleep and food, you really should try them sometimes. I heard they are supposed to work miracles on exhausted minds and bodies.”

The Captain finally looks up from his work and grins smugly at Jim.

But Jim doesn’t find it in himself to smile back, as he sees images of a broken man flashing through his mind, remembers his hand squeezing a lifeless body, desperation welling up in him. Hatred blooming in his heart, pouring through his veins, the cause another monster unleashed onto the world, who killed Pike and so many more.

He remembers their last conversations, and finally breaks down.

“Sir, I’m so sorry. Oh god, you were right. So right.”

Pike frowns, as if he doesn’t know what the blond is talking about.

And Jim buries his head in his hands, can’t look at him, can’t stop the tears streaming down his face, and he’s ashamed for losing his composure in front of the older man.

But Pike says nothing more, he just raises from his chair and sits himself down next to Jim.

He lays his hand reassuringly on his shoulder, but Jim doesn’t feel the touch. It nearly drives him crazy, he wants to feel it, needs to. Needs it as proof that Pike is really here, alive and well and his soul not lost between fire and debris in the ruins of Starfleet’s Headquarters.

Pike smiles softly at him, as if nothing is wrong, as if he hadn’t died an unneccessary death that could have been avoided so easily.

“It’s going to be ok, son.”

And Jim swallows his next heaving breath, cause Pike is mirroring his own words uttered not long ago in a seedy bar where Jim was trying to drown his sorrow on the bottom of a glass of bourbon.

Jim thought he had felt miserable that day, but that is nothing to the pain and devastation he feels right now, cause this is just his mind playing tricks on him. It can’t be anything else. He’s tormented with the image of this man he respected and admired, and Jim wishes nothing more for this to be real, to be more than just his own delusional wants.

“It’s ok Jim. You did your best. But now it’s time. You have to go.”

He lets himself be pulled off the couch and shoved towards the door, though he doesn’t want to go. This time he wants to stay, cause Pike’s office is safe, is right, is…

He turns around when he’s through the door, opens his mouth to speak, but when he looks back the scenery has changed again and he’s staring at the warp core of the Enterprise. With a pang in his heart he remembers what happened, his ship falling out of the sky and the sacrifice he had to make in order to save his crew.

The core is aligned, so all that’s left is crawling back through the Jefferies tube leading towards the entry of the chamber.

**_“Jim, don’t do this to me.”_ **

The voice is back again, starting to sound desperate, and Jim tries moving faster towards the direction he believes it to come from.

He knows that he should be in agony, cause he remembers it, white hot searing pain running through him, but again he feels nothing.

He finally reaches the end of the shaft, closes the door that seals off the radiation and separates it from the rest of the ship.

Someone is waiting for him. It’s his Spock, the on from his own universe, crouched down on the other side of the glass, and again his mind doesn’t get the memories completely right.

But that doesn’t matter now, as he starts growing tired, slumps down in front of the Vulcan and looks at him.

A single tear is running down his cheek, and Jim, who has never seen his first officer this devastated, tries to console the grieving man, as he presses his hand in the Vulcan salute against the glass. Spock mimics him, looks at him while more tears threaten to fall and follow the first one.

“You need to wake up, Captain. He’s waiting for you.”

Jim has to close his eyes, can’t hold them open any longer when it’s the most exhausting thing he’s ever done.

He’s afraid of closing them, fears where he’ll find himself next, but in the end it’s too hard to stay awake and so he gives in.

The world turns dark, and Jim feels like he’s floating, caught between sinking and rising up towards the surface.

But what surface? Where is he? And who is waiting for him? Who is he?

**_“Jim don’t you think you have slept long enough now? Come on kid, let me see those pretty baby blues of yours. Please, Jim.”_ **

There is no doubt, Jim knows this voice, the man it belongs to. And his heart is aching, can hardly stand how broken he sounds, wishes he could comply to the pleading.

**_“You know, you even made Nyota cry. Don’t you think you owe it to her to wake up?”_ **

Oh he wants to. So badly and with every fiber of his being, but he’s still floating, doesn’t know how to move, how to leave this dark and endless void. **  
**

**_“Spock keeps coming every day. I don’t know if it’s me or him who’s more uncomfortable about him sitting here in silence and staring at you. It’s kind of creepy, so do us a favour and save us both from the awkwardness.”_ **

The voice keeps talking to him, creeps into his thoughts and mind until the urge to rise is unbearable and Jim needs to move, needs to get away from here.

**_“Scotty is blaming himself. Every time he comes to visit you, he keeps apologizing and how he should have stopped you. I think he needs you to wake up even more than I. Do him the favour, that man is not supposed to be this mournful.”_ **

He doesn’t understand everything, only snippets reach him but they are enough to make him want to fight.

**_“Sulu and Chekov came to see you today. Do you know how hard it is to look into the kid’s sad puppy eyes? I told them you’re going to be ok. So don’t make me a liar, Jim.”_ **

Jim holds onto the voice, on the man behind it, that his mind is desperately trying to remember. He’s important to him, that’s a natural given and the only thing he can be sure of in this otherwise maddening silence. **  
**

The man keeps talking, telling him about people, their life without him. About his little girl waiting for her uncle Jim to wake up and answer her letters. How he’s going to take Jim back home to Georgia with him so that they both can recover and escape to a save retreat for a while, until he’s fit to go back to duty. About how Jim will make his life miserable by whining and complaining how bored he is, but he’ll take that over Jim being unconscious and still for the rest of his life.

And suddenly Jim remembers.

He starts fighting for real, cause they all were right, he needs to get back to him, can’t let him wait any longer.

Other voices start to mingle with his, they interrupt him, his parents, Pike -  their words an infinite loop that help him rising closer to the surface.

And then it happens, he’s waking up.

His eyes snap open, the voices are gone and his senses start working again. He feels sheets prickling on his skin, and he wants to sob in relief, cause finally everything is real and he knows, that he is right where he’s supposed to be.

He turns his head to the right, as he hears someone shuffling around, and there he is.

Bones.


End file.
